Standard Bank, General Electric vow to power Africa

Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender by assets, and General Electric on Tuesday reaffirmed their commitment to Africa at a power financing roundtable held in Washington DC. The partnership sees both parties aiming to bridge the power financing gap in Africa and forms part of the US Africa Leaders’ Summit, the largest gathering of African heads of state and government as well as key stakeholders to visit Washington on any one occasion.
The strategic partnership has already seen both companies commit to a $350 million financing agreement aimed at improving access to power infrastructure in Africa.
Africa needs to add an extra 300 gigawatts (GW) of power generating capacity over the next 15 years in order to meet demand which is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 3 percent over the next two decades.
According to the International Energy Agency, sub-Saharan Africa requires more than $300 billion in investment to achieve universal electricity access by 2030.
Mr Sim Tshabalala, Chief Executive Standard Bank Group, says solutions to meet Africa’s growing energy demands will only be possible once developers, governments and funders reach a common understanding of the risks, pricing and regulatory imperatives needed to facilitate the required investment.

APA

Comments

Kenya Economic Outlook

Economic growth is estimated at 4.9% in 2013 and is projected to accelerate to 5.7% in 2014. Having witnessed drastic currency depreciation and rapid inflation in 2011, the economy experienced stability for both indicators in 2012 and 2013 with inflation dropping to a single digit. This stability is expected to continue in 2014. Kenya’s economy continued to recover in 2013 from the slowdown experienced in 2011. Real GDP growth in the year accelerated to 5.2%, 4.3% and 4.6% in the first three quarters of 2013 primarily driven by financial intermediation, tourism, construction and agriculture. Real GDP growth is estimated at 4.9% and 5.7% in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Similarly CPI inflation is expected to remain single digit over the same period. The economy’s short- to medium-term forecast is for sustained and rising growth based on: increased investor and business confidence in the wake of peaceful March 2013 elections; increased rainfall; a stable macroecon...

How Amina lost African Union commission post to Chad candidate

Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed lost out to Chad’s Moussa Mahamat in the race to become the chair of the African Union Commission in the Round Seven vote. Ms Mohamed fell to a strong onslaught fronted by countries from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) after seven rounds of voting that saw three other candidates fall by the wayside early in the voting. Amina, 56, lost to Mahamat after heads of state voted in the seventh round. Yesterday’s elections in Addis Ababa, which were delayed for two hours after the opening ceremony, took up to 3pm, eating into the time of the voting for the AUC chairperson that was scheduled to take place at 2pm The African Heads of State and Government were forced to break and resume the voting session at 4pm. The African leaders took their seats at the assembly summit at 4.30pm and the voting started. In the first round, Amina was leading with 16 votes against Chad's candidate who had 14 vote...

5 Ideas (And One Bonus Idea!) For Your Drone Startup

Gene Marks President of The Marks Group, Columnist, Speaker The FAA has proposed new rules for drones and I admit that I’m a little relieved. The rules limit the drones to only 55 pounds. They can’t be flown outside of the line of vision of the operator and can’t go higher than 500 feet (which is about 50 stories, still pretty high) and 100 miles per hour (which is pretty darn fast). Companies like Amazon are upset because they had plans to deliver packages across the country, so they’ll just have to settle with same day delivery on Sundays and generating $4 billion a year from cloud services. They’ll be fine. Me? I run a technology company so my whole life is dealing with stuff that frequently doesn’t work as expected. I can’t even get my computer to restart cleanly three times in a row and then I hear that Amazon wants to fly thousands of drones overhead? Regardless of security issues (which are still very much an issue even with the FAA’s proposed ruling) ...

Biz Hub Africa

Search This Blog